We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Alicia Cook a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alicia, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. One of the things we most admire about small businesses is their ability to diverge from the corporate/industry standard. Is there something that you or your brand do that differs from the industry standard? We’d love to hear about it as well as any stories you might have that illustrate how or why this difference matters.

I am not sure if I do things totally “differently,” per se, but I am not nearly as active on social media when you compare me to my peers in the poetry/writing community. I do not post more than a handful of times a month, if that. When I was first starting out in this space, definitely between 2015 and 2017, I posted nearly every day.

Social media is a powerful tool, it builds community and brand awareness, and consistency matters, especially when you are just starting out. I like to think I hustled for enough years, established my brand, and can just post when I feel like it now. I’m well aware that if I posted more frequently I might do better with the algorithm, sell more books, and find new readers, but I’ve made a decision, mostly for my mental health, that I am willing to go more at a slow and steady pace instead.

The time between my last book and my upcoming book will be almost 4 years. I just hope that whenever I do release new work, no matter the time that passes in between, people will still be excited. So far, so good!

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Hi! I am Alicia Cook and I am the author behind a couple of poetry books, like 2016’s Stuff I’ve Been Feeling Lately, 2018’s I Hope My Voice Doesn’t Skip, and 2020’s Sorry I Haven’t Texted You Back. I am currently working on my next poetry book. I write a lot about mental health, grief, and addiction – sometimes all at the same time. I dedicate much of my life to shedding light on how drug addiction impacts the mental health of families. As an essayist and speaker, my activism to fight the opioid epidemic is far-reaching and has garnered a worldwide readership, plus I was featured on the Emmy-nominated PBS series Here’s the Story.

Ever since I was a kid, I knew I wanted to be a writer. I graduated from college with a BA in English Literature and Communications in 2008. In 2012, my first bit of writing went “viral.” And that is what kickstarted my career, really. It was an essay about Hurricane Sandy, and a number of news outlets, including CNN and USA Today, picked it up. From there, after a number of strangers emailed me asking to read more of my writing, I created an Instagram account (@thealiciacook) and started to share bits of poetry. Around the same time, I began writing more essays on drug addiction. I lost my cousin Jessica in 2006 from a heroin overdose. We were only 19 and 20 when she died. And my essays years later candidly discussed how entire families are impacted by a loved one’s drug addiction. A number of those essays went viral.

In 2016, after about four years of posting online, I self-published my first book Stuff I’ve Been Feeling Lately. It became very popular and went on to become a Goodreads Choice Awards Finalist. From there, a lit agent found me and helped me pitch that same book to a traditional publisher. Andrews McMeel Publishing re-published an expanded version of the book in early 2017, and has been my publisher ever since!

In 2019, my poem Sorry I Haven’t Texted You Back went viral online. It inspired my 2020 poetry book by the same name and it goes all in about the difficulties of healing and how worthwhile it still is to do so – with a major focus on mental health.

On a more personal note, I love iced coffee and I haven’t consumed alcohol in over three and a half years.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

I like to know that I am making a difference in people’s lives. Thanks to social media, I am very accessible to readers. So, they find me and DM me. And I check my DMs! I receive messages daily from people who share how stumbling upon my page or my books have helped them navigate through a difficult moment in their lives. Some have gone as far as to tell me my work helped them stay alive.

A sentiment that echoes through many of these messages is that they tell me I’ve helped them realize they aren’t alone in their feelings. Not feeling alone in something often helps makes the pain more manageable.

When I was going through the loss of my cousin in 2006, I felt VERY alone. I was 20, lost my 19-year-old cousin to a heroin O.D., at a time when addiction was even more stigmatized than it is now, and I felt like I had no one to look at to reassure me that I would make it through this. That’s actually what prompted me to even start writing about addiction from my perspective in the first place. I couldn’t find any literature on it at the time. So I went home and told my mother that I was going to write about it if no one else was. Because I KNEW I couldn’t be alone in this.

The fact that my writing can find people when they need it the most, is definitely the most rewarding aspect of being a writer.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

My authenticity. I am ME, no matter who else is in the room. In real life, and online, I am always the same version of myself. I respond to DMs and comments just like I did when I had 500 followers. I am also transparent and don’t just share my “highlight reel” online. I talk openly about pain and rejection. For example, in November my first piece of writing was picked up by the New York Times, and the first thing I said on the Internet was that I was rejected by them for 10 years and finally made it. I hoped sharing that part of the story would convince someone else to keep trying. I don’t gatekeep – if a budding author messages me a few writing-related questions, I respond with tips and things I wished I knew when I was starting out. It’s hard for me to explain exactly because I am talking about myself (laughs) but I think people know I am not full of shit or walking around with an inflated ego. I am very approachable and grounded. Oh, and I never miss a deadline and I work hard.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.thealiciacook.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/thealiciacook
• Twitter: www.twitter.com/the_alicia_cook
• Other: https://medium.com/@the_alicia_cook

Image Credits
Photo for FEATURED photo (black and white at microphone): John Romano Photography Additional photo credit to Kamelia Ani Photography for the photo of me at the podium (my back to the camera) in white dress with crowd in the auditorium